Dr. Mitzvah - Subway Scramble

A Nest of Trouble! Flying feathers and flying tempers and much ado about cockledoodledoo.

"It's more rusty than trusty!" he mumbled as he tried to straighten the handlebars.

"I think you should throw it out and buy a new one," said his housekeeper, Mrs. Goldengreen . "A man of your stature shouldn't ride around on an old, broken-down bicycle. In fact, I think you should buy an automobile. Everyone has one!"

"An automobile? What for? My bicycle takes me wherever I want to go and I never have to fill it up with gas," he said.

"But it's so old! You must have been using it since your bar mitzva!"

"Come, come, Mrs. Goldengreen. It's not that old. My Aunt Bertha gave it to me when I began studying medicine and she would not approve of my throwing it away a mere fifty-two years later! But I must find a way of fixing this handlebar. I can't ride it in this condition."

Just then the phone rang – a loud, long, shrill ring. Mrs. Goldengreen hurried to answer.

"Oh dear, yes of course, I'll tell him right now!" she said shaking her head. "Dr. Mitzvah, there's an emergency in the subway at Metropoville. They need you at the subway station."

"Has someone been hurt?" he asked.

"No, but the subway is stalled. In fact, all five subway cars are stalled."

"But I'm not a subway doctor. Why are they calling me?"

"Because your sign says you are Dr. Emanuel J. Mitzva, Doctor of Mostly Everything! They asked you to come immediately so it must be very important!"

"But how will I get to Metropoville without my bicycle?" he asked. He looked around the garden. "I know! I'll take the scooter!"

"Your scooter? That's even worse than your bicycle! Scooting around town is for little boys, not grown-up doctors!"

"Ah, Mrs. Goldengreen, we are as young as we feel and I don't feel a day older than yesterday! Metropoville is only seven minutes away by scooter and I won't be in danger of going over the speed limit!"

Dr. Mitzvah put on his grey bowler hat, grabbed his doctor's kit and scooted off to the subway station in nearby Metropoville. People were standing at the entrance, arguing with an elderly farmer and his wife. All five of Metropoville's trains were stalled on the tracks and the conductors were rushing around the cars trying to catch a dozen big, fat, brown, noisy roosters!

"Thank heaven you've come, Dr. Mitzvah!" said the head conductor. "What a dreadful commotion! Someone let a bag full of roosters loose in a car and the roosters flew out into the tunnel and into the other trains. Now all the trains are stalled and there are feathers scattered over everthing! No one knows how to catch the roosters or what to do, so we decided this was a job for you!"

"Hmm," said Dr. Mitzvah as he viewed the confusion. "The roosters seem lively and well enough, and no one was hurt, but why are all the people shouting and arguing with each other?"

"They are angry at that farmer and his wife," said a policeman. "They're the ones who set the roosters loose. I'm going to arrest them!"

"We didn't set the roosters loose!" cried the farmer. "We tied them up as tight as could be in a big bag. We were bringing them to our cousins in Metropoville. But the birds pecked at the string and it came loose. Just as we were retying it, the train lurched forward and the bag opened up and the roosters flew out. It wasn't our fault at all."

"Oh," said the conductor. "That was my fault. I'm so sorry. The train doesn't usually lurch like that but I thought I saw something on the tracks and I made a sudden stop."

"In that case, I'm sorry too," said the policeman. "If you didn't let the roosters loose on purpose, there's no reason to arrest you."

"Yes there is," said an angry lady. "You aren't supposed to bring roosters on the subway, even if they are tied up in a bag. Didn't you see the sign? NO ANIMALS ALLOWED!"

Everyone looked up. "Look at that!" said a man. "The word NO fell off the sign. Now the sign says ANIMALS ALLOWED. The farmer is from out of town. Maybe he didn't know that animals aren't allowed on the subway."

"Hm," said the angry lady. "That's true. I suppose he might not have known about NO ANIMALS. Well then, excuse me for getting so angry."

"Well then indeed," said Dr. Mitzvah, "instead of standing and arguing, let's try and catch the roosters." He fiddled around in his doctor's bag and took out a small whistle. "It's a hen-whistle," he said. "Let's see if it works."

Sure enough, after several toots, the roosters came flying into the car looking for hens. The farmer promptly caught them and put them back into the bag. His wife tied the bag, the conductor swept the feathers and the people returned to their seats.

"Do you think we can stay on the train with the roosters? We only have one more stop to go," said Mrs. Farmer.

"The bag is tied well," added her husband.

"I think one stop is permissible," said the conductor with a smile. "After all, the sign still says ANIMALS ALLOWED!"

The trains backed up and soon, Metropoville's mini-subway was moving smoothly along the tracks.

The conductor looked at his watch. "We'll be running a little late today, but thank goodness no one was hurt. And it's a good thing those birds were roosters. Hens might have started laying eggs and the subway would have looked like a scrambled feather omelette!"

"It's a good thing the police didn't arrest that poor farmer and his wife," said Dr. Mitzvah. "It just proves what I always say: Most problems are just the result of a mistake. If we gave people a chance to explain we would save everyone a lot of trouble."

"If you were on the police force, the jail would always be empty!" said the policeman.

"And the subway would always run on time!" laughed the conductor.

"And we wouldn't rush to blame people for innocent mishaps," added the angry lady who wasn't angry any more.

"How can we ever thank you?" asked the conductor. "I think you deserve a free lifetime ticket to the subway for your help."

"Oh no," said Dr. Mitzvah. "I much prefer to travel by scooter. Or bicycle. Well, if everything is in good working order again, I think I'll scoot along home. It's time to get back to fixing my handlebars!" He straightened his dotted bow tie and his grey bowler hat, waved goodbye, and scooted out of the subway station on his way back to Cedarville.

JUST PUBLISHED! Now you can read twelve wonderful Dr. Mitzvah stories by Yaffa Ganz, complete with bright, charming, full color illustrations in a brand new book designed just for young readers. Available from Feldheim Publishers.

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About the Author

Yaffa Ganz is the award winning author of forty titles for Jewish children, two books of essays for adults and many articles of Jewish interest in Jewish publications worldwide. She has written the popular Savta Simcha series and Sand and Stars - A Jewish Journey Through Time (a two volume Jewish history book for teen readers). The Ganzes live in Jerusalem.

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 6

(6)
gloria schwartz,
November 3, 2002 12:00 AM

You help build community.

thanks...

(5)
Edith Kehrli,
June 16, 2001 12:00 AM

I am very happy to know aish.com and I am glad I can see the picture of the wall and read the story of Dr.Mitzvah. I go further with surfing in your home-page. thanks a lot and shalom shabbat
Edith from Switzerland. I love your people and israel!!!

(4)
Anonymous,
January 14, 2001 12:00 AM

a good story and it was o.k.

my four year old son thought we should listen more to people; my seven year old daughter thought people should watch what they are doing more

(3)
Anonymous,
January 8, 2001 12:00 AM

great story

I really like the story. It's funny and I learned about helping people. My mom lets me read Dr. Mitzvah for homeschool. I am 6.

(2)
lionel spitz,
October 6, 2000 12:00 AM

oy oy oy yes yes yes

subway scramble I enjoyed. I gues I am
just a 67 year old kid at heart.
I do not mind growing old. I hope I just
never grow up.

(1)
Anonymous,
May 30, 2000 12:00 AM

Very sweet! Getting on the NYC subway mornings to go to work is often the greatest spiritual challenge of the day!

I've been striving to get more into spirituality. But it seems that every time I make some progress, I find myself slipping right back to where I started. I'm getting discouraged and feel like a failure. Can you help?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Spiritual slumps are a natural part of spiritual growth. There is a cycle that people go through when at times they feel closer to God and at times more distant. In the words of the Kabbalists, it is "two steps forward and one step back." So although you feel you are slipping, know that this is a natural process. The main thing is to look at your overall progress (over months or years) and be able to see how far you've come!

This is actually God's ingenious way of motivating us further. The sages compare this to teaching a baby how to walk. When the parent is holding on, the baby shrieks with delight and is under the illusion that he knows how to walk. Yet suddenly, when the parent lets go, the child panics, wobbles and may even fall.

At such times when we feel spiritually "down," that is often because God is letting go, giving us the great gift of independence. In some ways, these are the times when we can actually grow the most. For if we can move ourselves just a little bit forward, we truly acquire a level of sanctity that is ours forever.

Here is a practical tool to help pull you out of the doldrums. The Sefer HaChinuch speaks about a great principle in spiritual growth: "The external awakens the internal." This means that although we may not experience immediate feelings of closeness to God, eventually, by continuing to conduct ourselves in such a manner, this physical behavior will have an impact on our spiritual selves and will help us succeed. (A similar idea is discussed by psychologists who say: "Smile and you will feel happy.")

That is the power of Torah commandments. Even if we may not feel like giving charity or praying at this particular moment, by having a "mitzvah" obligation to do so, we are in a framework to become inspired. At that point we can infuse that act of charity or prayer with all the meaning and lift it can provide. But if we'd wait until being inspired, we might be waiting a very long time.

May the Almighty bless you with the clarity to see your progress, and may you do so with joy.

In 1940, a boatload 1,600 Jewish immigrants fleeing Hitler's ovens was denied entry into the port of Haifa; the British deported them to the island of Mauritius. At the time, the British had acceded to Arab demands and restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine. The urgent plight of European Jewry generated an "illegal" immigration movement, but the British were vigilant in denying entry. Some ships, such as the Struma, sunk and their hundreds of passengers killed.

If you seize too much, you are left with nothing. If you take less, you may retain it (Rosh Hashanah 4b).

Sometimes our appetites are insatiable; more accurately, we act as though they were insatiable. The Midrash states that a person may never be satisfied. "If he has one hundred, he wants two hundred. If he gets two hundred, he wants four hundred" (Koheles Rabbah 1:34). How often have we seen people whose insatiable desire for material wealth resulted in their losing everything, much like the gambler whose constant urge to win results in total loss.

People's bodies are finite, and their actual needs are limited. The endless pursuit for more wealth than they can use is nothing more than an elusive belief that they can live forever (Psalms 49:10).

The one part of us which is indeed infinite is our neshamah (soul), which, being of Divine origin, can crave and achieve infinity and eternity, and such craving is characteristic of spiritual growth.

How strange that we tend to give the body much more than it can possibly handle, and the neshamah so much less than it needs!